Data Security, Platform Security, Software Security

Orca Announces New Capabilities to Optimize Cloud Security and Cost

Orca Announces New Capabilities to Optimize Cloud Security and Cost

On February 16, 2023, Orca Security, a pioneer in agentless cloud security, announced that the Orca Cloud Security Platform now includes a cloud cost optimization framework, which assists organizations in reducing unnecessary cloud consumption and optimizing cloud costs while providing unrivaled security with the deepest and broadest visibility.

By using its proprietary SideScanning™ technology, Orca is now applying unparalleled insights into cloud environments, thereby allowing organizations to track and manage cloud spend. Unlike other cloud cost management tools, Orca's platform has the ability to identify more opportunities for cloud cost savings by having a deeper understanding of cloud workloads and their operations.

Despite considering cost efficiency a motivator for cloud adoption, several organizations are experiencing high expenses in their monthly cloud bills, mainly due to underutilization and forgotten cloud infrastructure resources. The 2022 State of the Cloud Report by Flexera indicates that organizations lose up to 32% of their monthly cloud expenses.

Orca's Cloud Cost Optimization feature addresses the problem of wasteful cloud spending by continuously aggregating relevant alerts about unnecessary cloud infrastructure spending across all supported cloud service providers. These providers include Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud. In addition, the Orca platform simplifies the cost optimization process by categorizing alerts based on cloud infrastructure that is causing excessive spending, such as virtual machines, databases, keys, and load balancers, making deallocation quick and easy for organizations.

Even though Stopped VMs on Google Cloud and AWS and deallocated VMs on Azure do not incur charges, many organizations are unaware that they still incur costs for the resources associated with those VMs until they are deleted. Orca assists organizations in recognizing resources attached to stopped or deallocated VMs to avoid incurring undesired charges, including Elastic IP addresses and EBS volumes on AWS, OS and data storage disks on Azure, and persistent disks and external IP addresses on Google Cloud.

About Orca Security

Founded in 2019, Orca Security is a leading global firm that provides agentless cloud security solutions to hundreds of enterprises. Its Cloud Security Platform can detect, prioritize, and fix security risks and compliance issues across cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, and Kubernetes. The company's patented SideScanning™ technology and Unified Data Model make security possible for organizations moving to and scaling in the cloud and enable them to secure their cloud infrastructure while providing comprehensive coverage and visibility of all risks. With continuous first-to-market innovations, the Orca Platform ensures security teams can quickly identify and remediate risks, keeping businesses secure.

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Platform Security

BLOKWORX Selects Stellar Cyber Open XDR Platform to Bolster its Managed Security Offering

Business Wire | October 31, 2023

Stellar Cyber, the innovator of Open XDR, announced today that a top 200 managed security service provider (MSSP), BLOKWORX, has added Stellar Cyber Open XDR Platform to its security stack to enhance context and increase the differentiation of its security offerings. Stellar Cyber’s Network Detection and Response (NDR) capabilities and unique ability to identify threats at the network layer played a pivotal role in BLOKWORX’s ultimate decision. The Stellar Cyber Open XDR Platform enables MSSPs to produce consistent security outcomes with existing staff. In addition, Stellar Cyber complements security teams’ human expertise, making them more productive and efficient. BLOKWORX is a leading MSSP delivering data-centric security services aimed at managed security providers (MSP) with limited in-house cybersecurity resources. BLOKWORX sets itself apart from other MSSPs with its extensive networking expertise. “Most MSSPs focus on the endpoint when it comes to threat detection, then broaden their efforts,” said Robert Boles, Founder & President of BLOKWORX. “While we can and do look at endpoints, together with Stellar Cyber, we take a more comprehensive approach, looking at all layers of the network, allowing us better to understand the real depth and breadth of a threat and more completely protect a client's network from cloud to edge to endpoint.” We are delighted that BLOKWORX underscores how the Stellar Cyber Open XDR Platform accentuates the differentiation and value they offer their customers, said Jim O’Hara, Stellar Cyber Chief Revenue Officer. BLOKWORX is already a deeply valued partner, and we look forward to developing our relationship further. BLOKWORX played a critical role in integrating Stellar Cyber and Deep Instinct. They invested significant cycles working with the dev teams from Stellar Cyber and Deep Instinct, ensuring the integration works as expected. The result is a resilient integration between the two products that protect enterprises globally. “BLOKWORX was an invaluable contributor to the integration work we completed with Deep Instinct,” said Andrew Homer, VP of Technology Alliances at Stellar Cyber. “When you see this type of dedication from a partner, you want to work harder to deliver the best possible outcomes, and that is what we did.” “We will not bring anything into our stack that doesn’t pass our comprehensive vetting process, especially when a product claims to be multi-tenant. Stellar Cyber checked every box in our vetting process,” added Robert Boles. Unlike other SecOps platforms requiring several multifaceted technical professionals to deploy, use, and maintain, the Stellar Cyber Open XDR Platform delivers NG-SIEM, NDR, UEBA, SOAR, and TIP capabilities in an efficient way that allows security analysts to focus on security operations. In addition, powered by deep learning AI and an “open” integration architecture, Stellar Cyber intelligently correlates alerts, logs, and telemetry data, providing security analysts with the holistic view of threats they need to mitigate them quickly. About Stellar Cyber Stellar Cyber delivers comprehensive, unified security without complexity, empowering lean security teams of any skill to secure their environments successfully. With Stellar Cyber, organizations reduce risk with early and precise identification and remediation of threats while slashing costs, retaining investments in existing tools, and improving analyst productivity, delivering an 8X improvement in MTTD and a 20X improvement in MTTR. The company is based in Silicon Valley. For more information, visit https://stellarcyber.ai. About BLOKWORX Most IT Managed Service Providers can’t keep up with all the security options and threats that come at their clients on their own. BLOKWORX simplifies security solutions and constantly prevents cyber threats before they become catastrophic events so MSPs can protect their clients, reduce their risks and have peace of mind growing their business, with a trusted and proven security partner watching their backs. We Defend. We Protect. You Grow. For more information, visit www.blokworx.com.

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Enterprise Security

Skybox Security Launches New Continuous Exposure Management Platform

Skybox Security | September 14, 2023

Skybox Security, a leading Exposure Management solutions provider, has unveiled the next generation of its prestigious Continuous Exposure Management Platform. This 13.0 release introduces significant enhancements to its solution for Attack Surface and Vulnerability Management, which revolutionizes the manner businesses manage and mitigate cyber exposure risk. Attack Surface Management Delivers Complete Visibility Skybox's Surface Management solution provides an extensive inventory and map of users' assets and applications. It evaluates and simulates attack paths. The result is a dynamic security model for the hybrid attack surface. Version 13.0 introduces significant new features, including: New Attack Surface Map Enhanced Attack Path Analysis LDAP Integration Cloud Infrastructure Integration Vulnerability Management Deepens Exposure Insights Skybox's Vulnerability Management solution combines more than 25 third-party threat intelligence feeds with its own Skybox Threat Intelligence feed in order to prioritize threats based on exposure risk and remediate vulnerabilities with prescriptive guidance. With Version 13.0, businesses are able to: Import Vulnerability Data New Business-Focused' Solutions View' Celebrity Vulnerabilities SOAR Integration Mordecai Rosen, CEO of Skybox Security, said, In today's complex threat landscape, organizations need to continuously manage their threat exposure based on the prioritized risks to their business. [Source – Business Wire] Rosen stated that the Skybox platform now supports every stage of an enterprise's continuous exposure management (CEM) program, from mapping the attack surface through contextualization and risk-based prioritization to final remediation. It was also mentioned that the latest enhancements enable organizations to further improve their security posture and substantially reduce the risk of a successful attack. About Skybox Skybox is trusted by over 500 of the world's largest and most security-conscious enterprises for providing insights and assurance to stay ahead of dynamically changing attack surfaces. Its Exposure Management Platform provides complete analytics, visibility, and automation to quickly prioritize, map, and remediate vulnerabilities across organizations. The vendor-agnostic solution optimizes security policies, actions, and change processes across all cloud environments and corporate networks. With Skybox, security teams can emphasize the most strategic business initiatives while ensuring enterprises remain protected.

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Data Security

Canadian Federal Government Choose Netskope as Preferred Vendor

Netskope | September 11, 2023

Netskope, an industry-leading secure access service edge (SASE) provider, has announced that it has been chosen as the preferred cloud access security broker vendor for the Canadian Federal Government under the cybersecurity procurement vehicle (CSPV) of Shared Services Canada (SSC). The objective of the SSC cloud access security broker CSPV is to provide government users with secure access to cloud-based applications, including all software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, regardless of their location. The Government of Canada (GC) selected Netskope after a competitive bidding process for a commercially available cloud access security broker service to fulfill its business requirements across various government organizations and agencies. The cloud access security broker service aims to facilitate the continued adoption, utilization, and delivery of SaaS cloud services by GC departments. The cloud access security broker service will improve the security posture of GC applications, services, and data as they are migrated to public cloud environments, permitting complete visibility and monitoring of GC cloud environments to detect, prevent, and respond rapidly to cyber threats; and ensuring the privacy, confidentiality, and protection of GC data in accordance with GC policies. As an integral part of Netskope Intelligent Security Service Edge (SSE), Netskope's market-leading cloud access security broker enables agencies to detect and manage the usage of cloud applications rapidly, irrespective of whether they are managed or unmanaged, and safeguard sensitive data from being stolen by malicious cybercriminals or risky insiders who have compromised the technology environment. A cloud access security broker is a cloud-based or on-premises security policy enforcement point situated between cloud service providers and consumers to combine and insert enterprise security policies when cloud-based resources are accessed. With a cloud access security broker solution, agencies can manage the unintentional or unauthorized transfer of sensitive data between cloud application instances while expediting security workflows with simple policy controls and incident response management. Paul Tanasi, Federal Regional Manager, Netskope, said, With the hybrid workforce becoming the new normal, Canadian government departments and agencies are relying more and more on giving their users direct-to-cloud access to SaaS applications and to web applications in general. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] Paul Tanasi further mentioned that there is a requirement to ensure these users' security and regain some of the visibility and control they were accustomed to when everyone worked from the office. A solution is required to tackle risks associated with cloud services, enforce security policies, and adhere to regulations, mainly when dealing with cloud services that are located outside their network perimeter and beyond their direct control. Netskope's CASB solution would offer the capability to adopt cloud applications and services confidently without compromising security or performance. About Netskope Netskope, an industry leader in SASE, assists organizations in implementing zero trust principles and AI/ML innovations to safeguard data and defend against cyber threats. The company's platform offers optimized access and real-time security for devices, people, and data, regardless of their location. Netskope assists customers in mitigating risk, accelerating application performance, and gaining unparalleled visibility into cloud, web, and private application activity. Thousands of clients rely on Netskope and its robust NewEdge network to combat evolving threats, technology shifts, new risks, organizational and network changes, and others.

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Data Security

Virtru Announces the Unveil of Data Security Integration for Zendesk

Virtru | October 09, 2023

Virtru, a worldwide leader in data-centric security and privacy, has announced the expansion of its encrypted file-sharing platform, Virtru Secure Share, to integrate with Zendesk. This direct integration enables organizations to safeguard data flow inward and outward within Zendesk without disrupting their current workflows. These integrations are accessible for purchase both from Virtru directly and through the Zendesk app marketplace. Virtru Secure Share offers top-notch, military-grade encryption and user-friendly experiences for Zendesk users. This integration is especially valuable for customer support teams involved in exchanging sensitive information with partners and customers during client onboarding and support processes. Jill Emerson, System Administrator and Member of Team Rehabilitation Physical Therapy, stated, We are in the healthcare sector, and to have that level of advanced data protection in Zendesk, without having to think about it, is invaluable. In between Virtru’s email security and the Virtru Secure Share integration for Zendesk, our most common and high-volume collaboration workflows can remain secure. Secure Share enables us to strike a balance between usability and security, so we can protect the data of our patients and deliver a positive experience at the same time. [Source – Globe Newswire] By utilizing Virtru’s user-friendly secure file-sharing features integrated into their familiar business applications, customer service representatives can efficiently assist customers while ensuring compliance with regulatory obligations. John Ackerly, Co-founder and CEO of Virtru, said, With this latest Secure Share integration, Zendesk users can now receive and send encrypted files securely with individuals both outside and inside of their organization without compromising the user experience or efficiency. [Source – Globe Newswire] He further stated that this is particularly crucial when confidential data must be shared to accomplish tasks. It was also mentioned that this should provide businesses with increased peace of mind, ensuring that their employees and customers maintain complete control of their data at all times. About Virtru Virtru empowers organizations worldwide, providing them with the means to harness the potential of data while ensuring control over its storage and sharing. Trusted by over 8,000 global clients, Virtru supports its Zero Trust strategies and safeguards its most sensitive data according to the world’s strictest security standards. As the creators of Trusted Data Format (TDF), an industry standard for persistent data protection, Virtru provides encryption technology for data shared through email, cloud environments, collaboration tools, and SaaS applications.

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Cyber attacks are increasing in volume, sophistication, and severity, and the federal government has taken notice. Now, they’re taking action — most recently in the form of new cybersecurity rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission. In “11 Ways to Streamline SEC Cybersecurity Compliance with Risk Cloud,” we explore a va

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